Mark Zuckerberg 1 Share your voice Mark Zuckerberg has embarked on his 2019 personal challenge. James Martin/CNET Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg posted the first video of his personal challenge for 2019.Zuckerberg, who sets a challenge for himself every year, such as writing an AI program to control his house, said his latest goal is to “get out and have a series of discussions on the future of technology and the internet, and how that’s going to affect our society.”In a video posted Wednesday, he visited Harvard Law School and spoke with professor Jonathan Zittrain for nearly two hours on subjects like augmented reality, content review and the challenge of the news feed. “We now have more than 30,000 people working on content review and safety review,” Zuckerberg said during the discussion. “Regardless of how much training they have, we’re going to make mistakes.”He also talked with Zittrain about ethical questions around ranking items that’re shown in people’s news feed on Facebook.”We come in every day and think, ‘Hey, we’re building a service where we’re ranking news feed trying to show people the most relevant content,'” Zuckerberg said. “[We make] an assumption that’s backed by data that, in general, people want us to show them the most relevant content. But at some level you could ask the question which is, ‘Who gets to decide that ranking news feed or showing relevant ads or any of the other things that we choose to work on are actually in people’s interest?'” Tech Industry Tags Commentread more

Kolkata: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee urged businessmen to invest in Information Technology (IT) in Bengal which is set to be the future destination in the country and perhaps the whole world.She laid the foundation stone of the Bengal Silicon Valley Hub at New Town on Monday evening. Terming it as “historic,” Banerjee said: “We were not there when investment in IT started in Hyderabad and Bengaluru. But now, both the places are saturated and Bengal is coming up as the next destination. Invest in Bengal and the state government will provide every facility,” she said. Also Read – Rain batters Kolkata, cripples normal lifeThe proposed hub is coming up in 100 acre of land and “if needed, we will provide another 100 acre,” she added.Banerjee maintained that there is no dearth of talent in Bengal. “You will find IT professionals from Bengal working in Hyderabad and Bengaluru and in many foreign countries as well. They will come back if you can give them proper infrastructure and respect. And I believe, they can do miracles,” she pointed out.Urging strong investments in the IT sector in Bengal, she stated the talent pool in Bengal is very high and the attrition rate is as low as 3 percent. The state government has land banks and land-use policy. “Consider Bengal to be your home and make plans to take the state forward. We are there to give you all the support. Consider us to be one of your family members,” she said. The Chief Minister said the situation in Bengal has changed drastically over the past few years. “There was a time when people did not want to invest in Bengal because of bandhs and strikes. The man-days loss amounted to 70 lakh and now it has been brought down to zero. I do not support bandhs and always believe in positive and not negative approach.” Also Read – Speeding Jaguar crashes into Mercedes car in Kolkata, 2 pedestrians killedBanerjee inaugurated three IT parks at Malda, Siliguri (Phase III) and Purulia. She congratulated the budding industrialists who have invested in the IT parks. Ramdas Kamath, the senior vice-president, Infosys, said well-known architect Hafiz Contractor has designed its building that will come up in New Town.”We will take 15 months to complete the building which will be a landmark site representing neo-classical architecture in Bengal. He especially thanked Debashis Sen, Additional Chief Secretary, state IT Department and Swarup Roy, Advisor, IT Promotion Cell for their tireless efforts to bring Infosys to Bengal. Describing Mamata Banerjee as “the best Chief Minister in the country,” Sanjiv Goenka said: “This is the best place to invest and the state government is ready to give every support. I do business in many states but in Bengal, the support I receive from the Chief Minister, her colleagues and the bureaucrats is remarkable.”Top officials of IT companies including TCS, Cognizant, Oracle India, Sify Technologies Limited, HPE-Aruba, DQE, Capgemini were also present at the event.read more

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Growing a business sometimes requires thinking outside the box. Free Webinar | Sept. 9: The Entrepreneur’s Playbook for Going Global 4 min read May 30, 2017 Just after the inauguration in January 2017, Nathaniel Teichman, chief operating officer of an audio sharing app, went to a rally for Planned Parenthood in Washington Square Park in New York City. He saw a problem. Activists who called the offices of their representatives in Congress became stuck on hold and had to endure long waits before they could voice their messages. “It seemed like there had to be a way to use technology to make it easier for people to take part in the democratic process,” said Teichman, 30, who studied business at Columbia University. Since graduating, Teichman had wanted to pair his business background with his passion for music. In 2015 he began working for Venmo co-founder Iqram Magdon-Ismail on an app called Ense. It functions like an audio version of Twitter allowing musicians to share sound clips. After the election of President Donald J. Trump inspired Teichman to political action, he wondered if Ense’s model could be repurposed so that citizens could share their personal stories with their representatives. Related: Getting Started With Small Business App DevelopmentIn early 2017 he began working pro-bono on nights and weekends with collaborators, Aneesh Bhoopathy and Phil Ditzler, whom he met through Ense. With “a little bit of computing magic and a little bit of manual labor,” he said, they co-founded the app Stance. It delivers audio clips, many of them wrenching testimonials, from users’ mouths straight into representatives voicemails. For the activist on the go, Stance means no more navigating automated phone prompts, no more waiting on hold, and no more being unable to get through when call volumes run at flood levels. During the House vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act, for example, some 7,000 new people used Stance to make themselves heard. “It’s using audio sharing technology to get people more involved,” said Randy Lee, 50, a partner at Limebeat Studios in Manhattan, who also collaborated with Teichman.Since its launch in early March, more than 20,000 people have downloaded Stance on their iPhones and Androids, Teichman said. All of them have the choice to also have their audio messages publicly tweeted at their representatives. When New York City-based web designer Ryan Giglio chose this in late March, because he was worried about a bill that could weaken internet privacy, his representative, Democrat Carolyn Maloney, tweeted back at him.“I think the app is great, it’s a great low-friction way of participating in a very high-friction system,” Giglio said.In an e-mail, Maloney said, “Any new technology that better enables constituents to reach out to their representatives is a change for the better.” Related: How to Include Politics in Your Marketing Without Turning Anyone OffShe’s not the only member of Congress learning about Stance. In Montana, Democratic Senator Jon Tester began fielding questions from reporters about the new ways he is hearing from his constituents through apps like Stance and Countable. “It doesn’t matter if it is through an app, mail, e-mail, phone or fax, people should always be able to contact their representation,” Tester e-mailed. “As technology advances, it’s critical that members of Congress are able to hear from their constituents in as many ways as possible.”Teichman said Stance will continue to develop, particularly with the aim of making it easier for congressional staffers to tally and catalog users’ concerns. Teichman also hopes that with enough people choosing to publicly tweet their audio clips, new data sets can emerge to help fact-check public officials. Related: 8 Ways To Pivot Your Business To Kickstart Growth“Politicians always say when they cast their votes that they’re just representing the will of their constituents,” he said. “This allows us to say, ‘Well, actually we have 300 of your constituents who say the opposite.’” A lesson he takes from his experience founding Stance is that in entrepreneurship it is helpful to find a previously unaddressed problem that can be solved by repurposing and modifying a tool that already exists. It’s how he got from the music collaboration idea at the heart of Ense to Stance, an idea that that allows more of the collaboration that is at the heart of representative democracy.“Everyone’s trying to do something right now,” Teichman said. “This is what we can do.” Register Now »read more